Ways To Lose Weight & Tone Your Stomach

If you’ve decided to lose weight around your midsection, before making a pledge to do crunches every night, evaluate your habits that may be causing weight gain. Losing weight requires creating a calorie deficit. Adopt healthy eating habits and engage in regular exercise to encourage weight loss and give your stomach a flat, toned appearance.

Create a Calorie Deficit

Decrease your daily calorie consumption to promote weight loss. Record everything you eat using a food journal or online weight management tool like MyPlate on LIVESTRONG.COM. Monitor your calories and eating trends for three days to see the average number of calories you consume daily. Subtract 500 to 750 from your average to calculate your daily calorie goal to lose 1 to 2 lbs. per week.

Eat Clean

Eating clean means consuming whole foods in their natural form and avoiding processed or manipulated foods. Stay away from processed foods like pre-seasoned foods, boxed meals and frozen dinners that contain large amounts of sodium, chemical preservatives, fats and refined sugars. Prepare your meals with natural foods like eggs, lean steak, poultry, fish, whole grains, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy.

Lift Weights

Engage in full-body strength-training workouts three days per week to build muscle and increase metabolism, aiding in weight loss. Perform one exercise to target each muscle group, such as dumbbell chest presses, triceps kickbacks, biceps curls, overhead shoulder presses, pull-ups and dumbbell lunges, for four sets of 12 to 15 repetitions. Train with moderately heavy resistance to encourage muscle growth. Your muscles should be approaching failure by the last set of each exercise.

Train Your Abdominal Muscles

Work your abs three days per week to help tone your midsection. Perform exercises such as side crunches, medicine ball sit-ups, v-ups, bicycles and leg raises for four sets of 25 repetitions. Execute three sets of 45-second plank holds at the end of the workout to improve core strength.

Engage in Aerobic Activity

Participate in aerobic exercise four to five days per week to burn off stored body fat. Walk on the treadmill, ride the recumbent bike, jog outside or pedal on the elliptical machine for 30 to 45 minutes. Join a group fitness class like group indoor cycling or kickboxing to add variety.